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Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

economist.com

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Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#521

Post by ramesh31 »

bluGill wrote: post #476
reactordev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say this. Money comes, money goes, that’s life. Ideally you’re smart enough to save and invest to weather these storms but for those (like myself) that are still working hard post 40, we know it’s all part of the game. I tell the younger generation the same thing. Save, invest, max 401k, before you go off and party. Your older self will thank you.

That advice isn't correct for someone who is just finishing school now. They need to stay alive in a down ecconomy where they can't find a job. In a couple years when things recover (or at least they find a job) it starts to be good advice. Even then I question max 401k - time works for the young and so a maxed 401k makes for too much money in retirement and not enough to enjoy now. Save for retirement yes, but max i…

>Even then I question max 401k - time works for the young and so a maxed 401k makes for too much money in retirement and not enough to enjoy now.

Except the 401k is so tax advantaged that you are foolish to not use it as your basis for financial security. Pre-tax money + employer contributions mean 401k is far and away the fastest method of building up a significant chunk of capital to protect yourself from hardship. Yes there are penalties for early withdraw, but they come out far less than what you would alternately be able to build up with just post-tax savings from your paycheck.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#522

Post by lumost »

dragonwriter wrote: post #229
pfisherman wrote: post #213

My pet theory is that we are experiencing stagflation, but only people >70 years old have ever really experienced it before, so most people are just scratching their heads wondering how it’s possible that stocks keep going up (inflation) while jobs are disappearing (stagnation). I am most definitely not an economist, nor am I qualified to play one on tv.

> My pet theory is that we are experiencing stagflation, but only people >70 years old have ever really experienced it before, so most people are just scratching their heads wondering how it’s possible that stocks keep going up (inflation) while jobs are disappearing (stagnation). We do not seem to be technically experiencing stagflation,ir really either half of it, on a national scale, as we appear to still be in a…

The definition of inflation since the 1970s has changed significantly e.g. owner equivalent rent. What many people describe as inflation is the change in base cost of capital purchases which has demonstrably risen at a substantially faster pace than baseline inflation see housing/car/education/healthcare prices.

Economic thought today is that rising asset prices relative to wages are not a sign of inflation. They can be attributed to lower cost of capital, increased dollar production of assets, lower risk profiles, and other aspects. However when observing housing prices and education prices which have seen declining utility over the years - it may be that we simply lack an appropriate word for the divergence of capital prices from wages, productivity, and risk.

There is an undeniable societal impact of this divergence, individuals become less economically and socially mobile. They maintain a net debt rather than net asset count for longer, they may be either practically or perceived as locked out of societal progress.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#523

Post by red-iron-pine »

lumost wrote: post #470
seanw444 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely have zero idea what you're looking for if the literal perfect fit isn't it. The simple answer is that they probably had no intention of hiring you, or anybody, in the first place. The amount of fake job listings is absurd.

We really need a regulation on job openings being real. Each interview costs the candidate roughly one PTO day. Mandating something like a minimum of 40:1 interviews to extended offers should correct for at least the worst offenses.

Then I'm not posting job openings at all, and I'm working my personal network extra hard to get a pipeline of actual candidates setup.

And it's not just the ATS doing this -- oooodles of goobers who are nowhere near qualified are using AI and slamming the hiring pipelines. I'm already leaning on the personal networks because of that, anyway, but Parent Poster's idea just means I push for that explicitly instead of informally.

See also: layoffs.fyi -- the market is just SATURATED with quality talent

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#524

Post by deaux »

raffraffraff wrote: post #337
SilverElfin wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others are criticizing you but the reality is that people usually spend more and save less than they could. There are plenty of people with modest income who manage to build a decent retirement. But it takes discipline. You have to be okay with sacrificing for the future.

As an "Old" who was a kid in the late 70s to early 90s, I'm telling young folks that there is no first world poverty like there was then. Not just because "we" were poor, but because you couldn't get "stuff" anyway. Like, the biggest TV I ever saw back them was 25". Nobody had a computer. Unemployment across the board was high. I saw my first kiwi fruit or avocado when I was 10. Clothes were expensive (even thrift /…

I'm younger than you - probably median HN age - but I've felt the exact same way for 10 or so years now. Just like you're saying, my generation has it objectively very good from a consumerist abundance PoV. Part of it is lower quality materials and manufacturing, but even if you disregard that factor, it almost certainly still holds. But that increase in material wealth hasn't brought happiness; if anything, it has done the opposite.

The optimism decline feels like it really started around 2001, and the downward curve has steadily continued ever since, down and down. Worst of all, it seems completely warranted, even if you try to look at it as objectively as possible, disabling news-headline-induced emotions as we're all prone to. The world has gotten too complex, everything too intertwined, making for an increasingly volatile and dangerous system.

And besides that major trend, it's also just many of the smaller things getting worse by the year - enshittification of both physical and digital goods, declining government services and so on.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#525

Post by red-iron-pine »

shagie wrote: post #515
ecshafer wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in a major tech market (SF? Seattle?) I was a laid off in the beginning of the year from my remote job, landed several interviews, and I found a new job in I was able to land interviews with some remote companies. I used to work at Shopify, a got some interviews at Ruby shops from that. Some possibilities: 1. Ageism, this is a distinct possibility. 2. You held very senior positions. I think a lot of people do…

> 2. You held very senior positions. I think a lot of people don't like hiring people that were more senior than them. So that CTO is being held as a negative. They are not saying "Hey I get the experience of an EM and a CTO in a Senior Engineer for a bargain salary", they are worried you will overshadow them. This is sub optimal behavior for companies. --- Not only is there the overshadow worry, but there's the over…

> I had an experience (post dot com crash) where the team hired a senior engineer... who left the team within a year to be an engineering manager somewhere else in the company and our team was back to interviewing for the position again.

Same reason I struggled to get a job at McD's or Home Depot years ago when laid off. They knew I'd be gone ASAP and that I probably wouldn't eat shit the way the local rube demographic would. These are crappy service jobs but they still want you to stick it out for at least 6-12 months.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#526

Post by red-iron-pine »

_yb2s wrote: post #516
deadbabe wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Companies” don’t hire people, a few human individuals acting autonomously, with their own beliefs and biases, are ultimately responsible for bringing someone new onboard. Once you hit 40s just get the botox anyway. Looks better. Only lasts 3 months or so. Good for a few rounds of interviews.

The way hiring works is a reflection of company culture. If they can’t execute a hiring process that hires the most skilled and competent instead of the youngest and best looking, guess what kind of coworkers you will have to deal with? Anyways, I am in my 40s- I am an amateur strength athlete and eat healthy and already look almost inappropriately healthy and youthful for a sedentary job- enough so that I feel somet…

Hiring and Retention are two very different experiences.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#527

Post by [deleted] »

donatj wrote: post #311
AIorNot wrote: post #260

Well as a single datum: After I got laid off in late 2023 I had a devil of a time finding work (despite having AI experience) to the point my unemployment ran out - And I was 20 years as a dev and tech lead and full stack, (never had trouble finding work) including stints as a leading EM and CTO, I’ve been an industry award winning innovation lead,a digital studio director, switching tech stacks and cloud certs all m…

The number of just straight out NO's I've gotten has been surprising and disheartening. I've been a developer for 20 years and genuinely don't think I've gotten an outright "no" before this year. Usually just no response. I've gotten maybe eight or nine actual rejections this year. It's honestly worse, emotionally. Ideally I want a job outside my wheelhouse to learn and move forward, but it seems like no one these da…

[deleted]

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#528

Post by bottlepalm »

rightbyte wrote: post #391
bottlepalm wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing like 80% of software dev applications at my company are H1B/OPT, like thousands of candidates - and they're getting hired just because of the sheer numbers they drown everyone else out. So yes, they are 100% taking jobs. A lot of them. I can't comprehend how there are so many.

Maybe there is some pool of candidates that applies to all jobs due to automation making the numbers scewed?

Yep, they are 100% doing that and it’s working. The people only applying selectively are being drowned out.

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#529

Post by [deleted] »

_yb2s wrote: post #516
deadbabe wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Companies” don’t hire people, a few human individuals acting autonomously, with their own beliefs and biases, are ultimately responsible for bringing someone new onboard. Once you hit 40s just get the botox anyway. Looks better. Only lasts 3 months or so. Good for a few rounds of interviews.

The way hiring works is a reflection of company culture. If they can’t execute a hiring process that hires the most skilled and competent instead of the youngest and best looking, guess what kind of coworkers you will have to deal with? Anyways, I am in my 40s- I am an amateur strength athlete and eat healthy and already look almost inappropriately healthy and youthful for a sedentary job- enough so that I feel somet…

[deleted]

Re: Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?

#530

Post by [deleted] »

idiotsecant wrote: post #428
deadbabe wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take care of yourself: exercise, skin care, fashion trends, botox, hair dye, etc. so you do not look 50+ and no one will know the difference.

Can we just pause and consider what happened to this industry where this is the advice. This is the natural consequence of marketing and fundraising completely destroying engineering. It's not about real things anymore. It's about image. It's an industry of carnival barkers turning everything it touches to shit.

[deleted]
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